


Little One

by buttonless



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:39:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2729336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttonless/pseuds/buttonless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Castiel,” she says carefully, leaning forward in her chair the slightest amount.  “You don’t- You can’t really think I’m here to save you, can you?  Don’t you remember the last thing I said to you? And what you said back?”</p>
<p>“I said, ‘I’m going to make sure you die for what you’ve done’,” she tells him quietly.  “And you replied-”</p>
<p>“I look forward to it, little one,” he finishes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little One

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is a fair bit morbid- I actually cut out a lot of the more disturbing stuff, but it's still a bit heavy. Please be aware that suicide is both discussed and carried out.

Claire comes into the kitchen quietly. She moves like prey does, shifting her weight constantly, her eyes roaming the area constantly. She settles on a chair across his, and Castiel lays eyes on her for the first time in years. 

 

She is much too thin, her ribs prominent even under the baggy sweater. There are bruises and cuts across nearly every each of skin that’s showing, and he imagines it must be worse under her clothes. A particularly vicious mark across the far edge of her left eye trails up under her feathery bangs, and he feels a surge of protectiveness. _How did you get that? Who gave it to you? Where are they now?_

 

He doesn’t ask though.

 

He didn’t know how they’d found her, or how long it took.  He doesn’t know what they possibly said to get her to come back to Kansas with them.

 

All he knows is that Dean and Sam came back to the bunker with a list of things they needed, and that Sam had set up a bed for her in one of the spare rooms while Dean had sat next to him, researching the items and reassuring Cas- and maybe himself too- that things were going to be okay now. 

 

Things were going to be all right. They’d found Claire and the rest of his Grace with her, and they were going to do a spell and things were going to be all right.  Everything was going to be all right.

 

They’d left as soon as they were ready, leaving him sitting in the kitchen, confined to the overstuffed chair he barely left these days. It’s not even been a few hours, but she’s sitting in the same room as he is.  Awkwardly folded into her chair, the sleeves of her sweater pulled down to cover her hands. She could have gone anywhere in the bunker, and he wouldn’t be able to follow. She was trusting him, just the smallest bit. So he wasn’t going to push.

 

“Hello, Castiel.”

 

“Hello, little one.”  He says it unthinkingly, the same way he would address her if they shared a body.  It had been an appropriate moniker. Of all his Vessels- faithful one and humble one and fair one- she had been the smallest in both size and spirit.

 

“Do not call me that.”

 

She meets his eyes, and he is struck by the power they hold over him.  Not accusatory, but certainly not kind. Exactly the same as his own. Or Jimmy’s, rather. He is looking at his Vessel, the last of her line.

 

 Jimmy was incredibly powerful, but it could have just as easily been Claire. It was Claire who had been strong enough to hold onto his Grace when he had carelessly left some of it with her, had carried shards of him inside her soul for years now. And it was Claire who was going to give it back, who was going to save him.

 

“Of course. Claire.”

 

It is the least he can do, refer to her as she requests.

 

If he had looked after her, the way he ought to have, the way he had promised, her life could be so different right now. Her mother could be alive, they could be living safely in a warm house with a cocker spaniel, just like Claire had always wanted.  She would be in school.  Filling out college applications, trying on prom dresses.  All the things she should have had, that he took from her.

 

Instead, she has been living alone, on the streets, for years.  She has had to deal with the terrors of the mundane and supernatural worlds.  He can only imagine the things that have hunted her, these long years that he was not there to protect her.

 

The things that have happened to her, that might have happened- They terrify him more than he knows how to say. He was supposed to be responsible for her.

 

“Claire,” he says quietly.  “I have failed you in ways that cannot be numbered-”

 

“Yes, you have.”

 

It does not sound judgmental. She says it as a statement of fact, like it is the weather report or what they are having for dinner.

 

“And I can never make up for that. But I want you to know- Once this is all over, you will have someplace, for as long as you need it. The Bunker isn’t exactly a place for you,” he says with a laugh that quickly turns into a wracking cough, tinged with blood. He swallows it down.  “But if you want to stay here, it will be. We’ll make it be.”

 

She frowns slightly at him. 

 

“Not that you have to stay here,” he amends quickly, realizing he’s overstepped.  “You don’t need to have anything to do with me or the Winchesters ever again, if that’s what you want.  But if you want a place- We’ll buy you a house, an apartment. Near a school, maybe. We know people who can pull off pretty much anything,” he tells her with a silent thanks to the wonder of the modern world that is Charlie Bradbury. 

 

“If you need money, education, new identity- Whatever it is.  I want to make sure you get it.”

 

“Once this is all over?”

 

“Yes,” he repeats.  “After this,” he says gesturing to himself and coughing slightly as if on cue, and her frown deepens.  “You can get out of hunting, stop living on the streets.  Unless that’s something you want,” he adds in a rush, because Sam has told him that people don’t always want what you think they will want.

 

“And then we can figure something else out. Get you better weapons, get you in touch with other young hunters, help you train more.  Whatever it is you need.”

 

He’s almost certain this is the right thing to do, to offer her the shelter and support she so obviously needs. He thinks Sam would outright tell him that he should make that offer, and that Dean would approve. Perhaps not in so many words, but he thinks Dean would approve.

 

But her frown has only deepened.

 

“Castiel,” she tells him sadly. “There- There isn’t going to be an ‘after this’. You know that, right?”

  

Castiel isn’t quite sure how to respond. He isn’t used to needing to be the optimist, he usually relies on Sam or Dean to buoy him instead.

 

She reaches up to brush a chunk of brittle yellowed hair from her face, and her sleeve falls to reveal a forearm. He contains a wince, seeing the track marks littered amongst the other scars.

 

“Claire, I know- I know it’s hard to stay positive. It feels impossible at times,” he admits with a sigh.  “And I know that this spell is going to be complicated.  But the Winchesters _can_ find all the ingredients, I’m sure of it.  And you- You are going to perform it perfectly.  There’s _no one_ I would trust more with this, understand?”

 

He smiles slightly at her, hoping she will feel more confident.

 

She looks at him in confusion again.

 

“The spell?”

 

“Yes,” Cas replies.  “The spell to remove the Grace left in your soul and transfer it back to my vess- To me.”

 

“Castiel,” she says carefully, leaning forward in her chair the slightest amount.  “You don’t- You can’t really think I’m here to save you, can you? Don’t you remember the last thing I said to you? And what you said back?”

 

Castiel has so many memories, he tries not to dwell on them these days.  But he reaches into the years and recalls the night in question-

 

“I said, ‘ _I’m going to make sure you die for what you’ve done’_ ,” she tells him quietly. “And you replied-”

 

_“I look forward to it, little one,”_ he finishes.  That’s what he’d told her, in the final second before leaving her body and taking back her father’s.  _I look forward to it, little one._

 

The silence in the room stretches for what seems an hour, while he stares at her in shock. 

 

She just looks back at him, her face blank and her identical eyes showing nothing he has ever learned to read.

 

“You are here to kill me,” he clarifies.

 

“Of course,” she nods.  “The list of ingredients I gave to the brothers is just a list of things that will take them a while to get. Just a way to make sure you are helpless.”

 

_You aren’t helpless,_ he tells himself.  He’s got a gun, Dean’s favorite pistol in the inner pocket of his coat, hanging on the arm of his chair.  A phone too.

 

His best bet is to shoot to incapacitate. _Maybe her shoulder._ Then he’ll call Dean and tell them to turn around.  _Maybe Jody, too._   Depending on fast the brothers were speeding, the sheriff might be closer and can get here sooner to treat Claire’s wound.

 

The wound she’s going to get from him.  Because he’s about to shoot her. He feels sick.

 

He can’t hesitate, though, so he plunges his hand to the left, prepared to disengage the safety and fire. But it isn’t there.

 

There’s a small noise from the other side of the table. Claire has placed Dean’s gun and the cell phone in front of her. 

 

“I took them after the Winchesters left,” she says. “While you were sleeping.”

 

So he is defenseless. And alone.

 

Claire stands up suddenly, and he tenses in reaction. But she only crosses to the kitchen pantry, opening the door and peering inside. 

 

“I’ve thought about it a lot, you know. How I’m going to kill you. I don’t want you to just die- I want you to suffer. I want you to suffer more than you can possibly imagine. Just like I did.”

 

She emerges from the pantry with her treasure: A loaf of bread and some peanut butter. 

 

“The obvious route is to take everyone you love. One by one.”

 

She takes out two pieces of bread and slots them into the toaster.

 

“I considered picking them off. Rigging hunts they couldn’t possibly win. Letting the monsters and demons and angels finally have what they’ve always wanted from me.  But I wanted you to know. That I was the one responsible.”

 

She turns back to face him again, leaning against the counter, her bare feet crossed near the ankles.

 

“I could drug Dean and Sam, and anyone else I felt you were close to.  Tie you up and make you watch them die.”

 

Castiel closes his eyes against the imagined sight.

 

“I would torture them, slowly. Painfully.”

 

The toast pops up, and she spreads a thick layer of peanut butter on each slice.

 

“You failed them so often, Castiel. It would be nice, I think. To watch you fail them one final time.”

 

“I was not always in a position to-”

 

“I know, Castiel,” she says gently, grabbing a plate from the cupboard, her back turned to him.  “I know all about the war in Heaven, and you searching for Purgatory. I know about the Leviathan and Naomi’s constant reprogramming.  The angels and demons that wanted the rest of your Grace? They’ve kept me very informed of current events over the years.”

 

She brings her plate back over to the table and sits down.

 

“What you did with the souls from Purgatory, though- That I saw on the news.  I was sitting in a restaurant in Philadelphia, Castiel. And I saw my father’s face on the television. Covered in blood and your twisted smile, beaming up from a sea of dead bodies.”

 

Castiel cannot really blame her, for wanting him dead.

 

She takes several bites of her toast, chewing thoughtfully before she continues.

 

“Sam, I think, I would hang.  You could watch him struggling for air, twisting about like a doll. I’d make Dean watch that too.  I would bleed him to death, very carefully. So that it would take as long as possible.”

 

Castiel hasn’t eaten in days, hasn’t been strong enough to, but he feels the bile creeping up his throat.

 

“I’d give you a few openings- Opportunities to save them. Maybe by forcing you to confess all the wrongs you have done to them. Because currently they don’t even know, do they?  They don’t even know the depth of your sins,” she hisses angrily at him, the effect lessened by the toast crumbs she spits out with your words. 

 

“Obviously, though,” she tells him after she’s finished her toast. “I’ve decided against that.”

 

He tries not to make his relief too obvious. He was terrified- still is, a bit- that she was going to drag him into the dungeon, where he would be forced to watch what she had described. _Nothing could be crueler,_ he thinks.

 

“To have to watch the people you love suffer,” she clarifies, “Knowing that the one person who could do something to stop it doesn’t care enough to do so- Well, you aren’t good enough to share that experience with me. So I thought of something better.”

 

“You are going to die,” Claire says as she places her hand on Dean’s favorite pistol, the one he put in Castiel’s coat pocket over a week ago, ‘Just in case’.  “With a bullet from this gun.”

 

“They won’t- Claire, they will kill you for this, they will hurt you,” he pleads, not just for his own life. If she kills him, he knows the Winchesters will not just let her disappear. 

 

Dean would kill her, and that terrifies Castiel. Partially because he knows he has wronged her, and that she deserves to live in peace. But mostly, because Dean does not need more blood on his hands, more misplaced vengeance to keep him up at night.

 

She pushes the pistol a foot towards him- Not near enough for him to reach out and grab it, but towards him nonetheless.

 

“Why would they think I was responsible?”

 

_No._

“It’s going to destroy them, you know,” she says quietly.  “To realize you didn’t have faith in them, that they could save you. Or worse. To think that you preferred death over a mortal life with them.”

 

_No no no no no._

“I considered having you write a note. But I realized,” she continues, “That whatever words I can force you to put to paper will never be crueler than what they might imagine.”

 

“Claire-”

 

“Dean was so devastated, each time you died. How do you think it will feel to him, to know you chose it this time?”

 

She stares at him in silence, and his voice breaks when he realizes that she expects an answer.

 

“It’s- It’s going to kill him. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

 

She smiles sadly at him.

 

“You know how little self-worth he has, Castiel. How long do you think it will take him to break?”

 

He doesn’t answer this time, but she continues anyway.

 

“He’s going to drink himself to ruin. Maybe he’ll get in that beloved car of his, drive it into a tree to make the pain end.” Her voice is low, and though she speaks without a hint of malice, Castiel has never heard any crueler sound.

 

“Maybe he’ll pick up this gun he gave you to protect yourself, and think about how you interpreted that instruction. And maybe he’ll decide he knows where the next bullet ought to go.”

 

Castiel cannot breathe, like all of the air has drained from his lungs, been replaced with a tacky, thick poison.

 

“After he goes, I don’t think Sam will last much longer.  I doubt he’ll be as intentional as Dean will be- He’s been ignoring that urge far too long to just suddenly succumb- but I doubt he’ll put up a fight. Without you or his brother, what’s the point to him? He’ll have no one to define him. No one to worry if he gets careless on a hunt, if he lets a knife slip between his ribs and finally finish him.”

 

He struggles to swallow, but opens his mouth and exhales shakily. 

 

“You are wrong,” he tells her. “They are strong. Even if they believe your story, they know I would never want that for them.  They are stronger than you think.”

 

“I do not particularly care what happens to them,” Claire says with a shrug.  “Maybe they won’t care at all. Maybe they will both be happier without you around.”

 

He knows she is saying it to be hurtful, and she succeeds. 

 

“Honestly, though. What I think will happen after you die is of no consequence,” she reiterates.  “It’s what you think will happen.  I want you to die, Castiel, imagining what you are leaving behind. Just like my father did.  But I want you to know that any false hopes you have about your future are just that- False.”

 

She pushes her chair back and stands up, hands on the table as she looks down at him.

 

“I want you to die, knowing that there is nothing you can do to save the people you love.  And watching your face a few moments ago,” she says, “Let me know exactly how much saving you think they will need.”

 

“They are stronger than you think,” he reiterates shakily, and she exhales a breathy laugh. She knows she is not the one he is trying to convince.

 

“Maybe. But I know- and you know- That you do not think so.  They are weak, just weak enough that you have genuine cause to worry that I am right.”

 

He wants to argue, but he cannot. Any feeble protests he makes will only underscore her point.

 

“The question is, will you do this willingly,” she motions at Dean’s pistol, “Or will I have to force you through it?”

 

He looks questioningly at her.

 

“I would take the first option,” she advises. “It would be easy for me, to take your will. But the spell is strong, and your thoughts would run wild under it, uncontrolled. If you pull the trigger yourself, perhaps you can delude yourself into thinking they will be safe, in your final moments.”   

 

“The spell?  You are a witch,” he guesses.  It’s not surprising- Living in the supernatural world so long and so alone, she had to have picked up a few tricks in under to survive.

 

“No,” she says slowly.  “I’m not a witch. Or a human. Or a monster. I’m exactly what you made me, Castiel.”

 

_A child, with the wrath and knowledge of an angel left stitched into the seams of her soul, left behind there by an angel who was too proud, too righteous in his mission, to ensure the safety of his Vessel_ , he thinks.

 

“I will do it myself, Claire,” he says finally. He has fought so long for free will. He does not want to die without it, even if it is only an illusion.

 

“Good,” she replies.  “I had hoped you would.”

 

She pulls a pair of gloves out her back pocket, putting them on before she wipes the glove clean with the edge of her sweater.

 

“I’ll call them after we finish,” she tells him. “To tell them what has happened.”

 

“What will you say?”

 

“I was napping,” she says calmly. “When I heard the shot go off.  I’ll do what I can to save you, of course.  But there isn’t anything to be done.”

 

His hand is shaking, the way it has been for the past several weeks, as his stolen Grace has rotted out his body. When she wraps her fingers around his wrist, it stills a bit.

 

“Let me help you,” she says softly, curling his trembling fingers into her own, fitting them both around the grip of the pistol.

 

“What will you do? After this?”

 

“I do not know,” she admits.  “I have spent my life surviving, and knowing I will kill you. With your death, I will not be hunted anymore. Shreds of your Grace are worthless without you yourself to sustain them.”

 

She will be safe, then, from his enemies and his friends. He supposes he is glad of that.

 

“So I guess I will just have to figure something else out.”

 

There is silence as she lifts his hand in hers, fits the barrel of the gun below his jaw. 

 

“I want you to know,” he tells her, trying to focus on the girl in front of him, and not who he is leaving behind. “That I am genuinely sorry. If I could change things, little one, I would. I promise.”

 

Her eyes harden as she meets his. “But you can’t. No more than you can change what awaits them.  Maybe you’ll see them again, but I doubt it.”

 

Silently, he agrees. He will not be allowed into Heaven.

 

Their fingers settle on the trigger, and for a long moment they stare at each other.  He prays, for Dean and for Sam and for Claire. That they will be stronger than he could be. That they will be happy, at last. That they will survive.

 

The moment stretches, and he thinks he sees something soften in Claire’s face, a shred of regret and indecision. “Goodbye, father,” she whispers, pressing her lips softly to Castiel’s- to Jimmy’s- hairline.  She pulls back a moment later and spits at Castiel:

 

“I am not your little one.”

 

Their hands pull the trigger and the pistol fires.


End file.
